3 women were paid to falsely claim they had sex with Menendez, Dominican police say

Quote:

Three women were paid to falsely claim in videotaped interviews that they had sex for money with U.S. Senator Robert Menendez in the Dominican Republic, a spokesman for the police said today.

The women, whose claims generated media attention in the United States, were hired by a Dominican attorney to make the videotaped statements, spokesman Maximo Baez told reporters. Two of the women received about $425 and the other was paid about $300, he said.

This allegation got shopped around to several news outlets, but only The Daily Caller published the story.

Quote:

In the days before Novemberís election, an operative approached The Star-Ledger with the charge that Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) had paid for sex with prostitutes during a trip to the Dominican Republic.

We didnít print the allegation because it failed the smell test. The accuser would not step forward. We could not interview the prostitutes who supposedly made the claim. And the information came from a single source with a clear political motive.

Several media outlets in New Jersey and New York came to the same conclusion. This evidence was way too flimsy.

But the charge became public, courtesy of the Daily Caller, a conservative website that is unburdened by quaint notions of fair play.